text:
One of the buildings at Saint Paul's School Founded 1856 |
Reggie grew up in a family where attending boarding school was the expected educational path to college. Both of his parents had attended such schools, as had their parents before them, and it was understood that he and his siblings would follow in their footsteps. It was what people of our class and background did.
A view of Saint Mark's School Founded 1865 |
Reggie is the youngest of four children. As a boy he watched with both interest and ambivalence as his older sisters and brother left home before him to attend boarding school. He found it interesting because they were embarking on a journey that he was expected to someday follow, and he was ambivalent because he (mostly) missed their company when they were gone. Reggie also found them to be near strangers when they returned home during school breaks, as they were different from how he remembered them. They had become more worldly.
Over time Reggie looked forward to leaving home to attend boarding school, too. It seemed like an adventure to him and the opening to a whole new world on the way to adulthood.
An aerial view of Saint George's School Founded 1896 |
By the time Reggie reached ninth grade he was the only one of the children in his family left living at home during the school year. While he had at times as a boy wished that he had been an only child—for the reasons that many children do—he found that when it actually came time for him to be the only one at home with his parents it wasn't the idyllic, cozy experience he had daydreamed about.
For by then ours was a less-than-happy household. My parents' marriage had sputtered into a loveless stalemate, and when they were around at the same time, which wasn't all that often, they were barely on speaking terms with each other. They were exhausted in their relationship and self-absorbed in their own lives, and they weren't all that interested anymore in the demands of parenting. It's not that they were overtly neglectful of me, it's just that they didn't have much time or attention left over for me. I was pretty much left on my own to fend for myself.
The gothic chapel at Groton School Founded 1884 |
It was a solitary and lonely existence for young Reggie, with little structure or direction. And it was a particularly frustrating one for him, too, because he is, by nature, a social animal, and he loves being around other people and in the thick of things. Reggie is most definitely not a loner. He likes being at the party.
When the subject of my applying to boarding schools came up I was stunned to hear my father, FD, say that he didn't think it was necessary for me, and wouldn't I prefer to stay at home? The prospect of spending the next three years alone at home with my remote and distracted parents and attending the suburban country day school I was going to at the time was appalling to me! So I mounted a concerted campaign to turn the tide. I was determined to get the Hell out of Dodge and get on with my life, and I saw going away to boarding school as my ticket for doing so.
A view of a dormitory (or "house") at Middlesex School Founded 1901 |
Through incessant cajoling, unbecoming near-tantrums, and never-ending churlish, surly behavior on my part I was able to convince my parents that it would be far better to get me out of the house and that everyone would be happier with me away at boarding school. While I didn't get into Exeter, which was my first choice and where my brother, Frecky, had gone before me, and I was waitlisted at Hotchkiss, where FD had gone, I was admitted by a number of what my father rather snidely referred to at the time as "the lesser boarding schools," including one of the Saint Grottlesex schools.
I didn't get in to Exeter, much to my regret at the time |
For those of my readers who may not be familiar with the term, Saint Grottlesex refers to a group of five college preparatory boarding schools established in New England in the latter half of the nineteenth century, all affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The schools are Saint Paul's, Saint Mark's, Saint George's, Groton, and Middlesex—collectively known as Saint Grottlesex. Which one of them I attended doesn't really matter, but what does matter, at least for me, is that when I arrived there I found myself, much to my relief, and then joy, in an environment where I now had boundaries that made sense to me, where there was a definite routine I had to follow—whether I cared to or not—where I was challenged intellectually, academically, athletically, and socially, and where hard work and determination to succeed were actually recognized and rewarded by those in a position of authority. It also provided me with a religious education and framework grounded in the protestant Episcopal church that has been a sustaining force in my life ever since. All pretty good stuff, indeed.
I didn't get in to Hotchkiss, either |
Another aspect of boarding school that I benefitted from is that it was (at the time, at least) a sink or swim environment where there was no mollycoddling of the students, who were expected to get with the program, and where slacking off was not tolerated. Saint Grottlesex wasn't exactly a cold-shower-and-fifty-pushups-before-breakfast kind of school, but it was a rigorous enough place where one was expected to learn and abide by the school's social, academic, and athletic codes and hierarchies. I quickly realized upon my arrival that I had entered a whole new league and that I needed to rapidly acclimate myself to the rhythms of the place or I would find myself sitting on the sidelines, which is where I most decidedly did not want to be. Fortunately, through a combination of hard work, perseverance, and the helpful mentoring of one or two of the school's admirable schoolmasters (that's what they called the teachers there), I was able to learn and master the skills I needed to successfully navigate Saint Grottlesex's highways and byways. I emerged from its halls a better disciplined, better adjusted, and far better socialized person than I would have been had I not gone there.
Some of my readers may have assumed at the outset of this post that I was going to write that I most appreciated going to boarding school because it provided me with entrée to an elite and socially advancing world and paved the way for my Ivy League education and a career on Wall Street. While I will admit that these may, in some cases, be pleasant side benefits of such an education and experience, it is most decidedly not why I am most grateful for having gone to boarding school. No, it is because attending Saint Grottlesex was a lifeline to me—as it was to many of my schoolmates who also came from less-than-happy homes. It freed me from a difficult and horizon-limiting situation at home and gave me the framework, support, and tools for managing my life's journey that I was not getting from my parents or at the school I was attending when I lived with them, and that I desperately hungered for at a vulnerable and formative time in my life.
And for that I am most fortunate and grateful.
All vintage postcards, with the exception of the ones of Saint Mark's School and Hotchkiss School, courtesy of CardCow.com; Saint Mark's and Hotchkiss postcards courtesy of USGenWeb Archives


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Truth for Life - Mar. 2, 2013
- Sign Up for Email?
- Published Feb 28, 2013
March 2
Wisdom in War
We are engaged in a great war with the Philistines of evil. Every weapon within our reach must be used. Preaching, teaching, praying, giving--all must be brought into action, and talents that have been thought too mean for service must now be employed. These various tools may all be useful in slaying Philistines; rough tools may deal hard blows, and killing need not be elegantly done, so long as it is done effectually. Each moment of time, in season or out of season; each fragment of ability, educated or untutored; each opportunity, favorable or unfavorable, must be used, for our foes are many and our force but slender.
Most of our tools need sharpening; we need quickness of perception, tact, energy, promptness--in a word, complete adaptation--for the Lord's work. Practical common sense is a very scarce thing among the conductors of Christian enterprises. We might learn from our enemies if we would, and so make the Philistines sharpen our weapons. This morning let us note enough to sharpen our zeal during this day by the aid of the Holy Spirit. Witness the energy of some, how they travel over sea and land to make one proselyte--are they to monopolize all the earnestness?
Consider what tortures some endure in the ser-vice of their idols! Are they alone to exhibit patience and self-sacrifice? Observe the prince of darkness, how persevering in his endeavors, how unabashed in his attempts, how daring in his plans, how thoughtful in his plots, how energetic in all! The devils are united as one man in their infamous rebellion, while we believers in Jesus are divided in our service of God and scarcely ever work with unanimity. O that from Satan's infernal industry we may learn to go about like good Samaritans, seeking whom we may bless!
Family Bible reading plan
verse 1 Exodus 13
verse 2 Luke 16
Click here to learn more about Truth For Life
From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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(15 kilometers)
4 hours
4 hours
Difficulty: 4/10
Cel phone coverage: Everywhere
Water needs: 2 liters. Please, do not litter!
Transportation: CityBus No. 7 from Exchange Square. Get off at Tsung Man Street in Aberdeen. Return via buses 6 (to Central) or 76 (Causeway Bay) at Wong Nai Chung Gap.
Get off at Tsung Man Street in Aberdeen |
Keep on going on Aberdeen Reservoir Road |
Until you reach Peel Rise. Take a left on Peel Rise |
Keep going up on Peel Rise, you'll get to this barrier. Keep going straight... |
... you'll reach the trail head on your right, take it. There will be a map. Keep on the trail (don't take the stairs, they bypass pretty much all of section 3) |
En general, just follow the signs with the little hiking guys... |
Keep following the HK trail signs... |
At the end of section 4. Buses will be on your left. |


text:
Router Slowdown
From DD-WRT Wiki
English • Deutsch • Español • Français • Italiano • 日本語 • Polski • Português • Русский • Svenska • 中文(中国大陆) • 中文(台灣) • |
[edit] Introduction
Issues occur with many routers, including routers running DD-WRT, when using the router with heavy P2P applications. The router becomes 'slow' over time, and restarting helps for a short time. Some symptoms can be:
- Slow web-interface, or cannot connect at all to web interface
- Slowing transfer of data, e.g. browsing, after a reboot
- Not responding to ping
- Router Crash or even rebooting
Usually the culprits are heavy P2P software like Emule, Bittorrent, uTorrent, Azureus, Shareaza or something similar. These programs, by default, can require a lot of connections which could cause the routers' ip_conntrack table to get full.
- Especially BitTorrent's DHT feature sends thousands of UDP packets that quickly overflow this table.
Routers affected with this issue are the most common types of routers running DD-WRT.
[edit] Definitions
- Peer to Peer applications. Could mean eMule, uTorrent, Azureus. Within the context of this article does not mean Skype, or other 'lite' P2P applications.
- DD-WRT Device
- A Router running third-party, DD-WRT firmware. Although configuration in other methods besides 'router' is possible, such a 'bridge', this article and phenomena only occurs in the default router configuration of DD-WRT.
- Web Interface
- The default management method, open a browser to http://192.168.1.1 or your custom DD-WRT Device's LAN IP.
[edit] Diagnosis
When this 'slowdown' occurs and the router doesn't respond to pings nor Web Interface requests, you still can check what's going on:
- Close all your P2P/network applications and wait a few minutes for connections to be freed.
- Try to use the CLI to communicate with your router.
- If that's not possible, reboot the DD-WRT Device.
- Check to see if your problem is caused by TCP or UDP connections. From the CLI:
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_max 4096 # Here the router displays the maximum number of possible connections. grep -c ^udp /proc/net/ip_conntrack 3693 # Here UDP is using 3693 entries grep -c ^tcp /proc/net/ip_conntrack 115 # and TCP uses only 115 entries
- You may also view syslog messages:
cat /var/log/messages
- First, you'll see 'full, dropping packet.' messages followed by 'messages suppressed.'
- Eventually, it will get verbose and you'll see logs similar to the following :
<4>kernel: ip_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. <4>kernel: NET: 15 messages suppressed. <4>kernel: ip_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. <4>kernel: NET: 12 messages suppressed.
[edit] Solution
After you have rebooted and turned off any heavy P2P applications:
- Go to the Web Interface of the DD-WRT Device and log in
- Go to 'Administration'
- Go to 'Management'
- Enter the following values at 'IP Filter Settings'
- Maximum Ports: 4096 (For an 8MB RAM model set it no higher than 1024)
- TCP Timeout (s): between 300 to 900 (higher is safer, lower can forget connections too quickly, DO NOT EVER GO BELOW 300 (5 minutes)!!)
- UDP Timeout (s): 30
- Image: IP Filter Settings on DD-WRT v24 svn 12548
- Save Settings and then Reboot Router
The above settings control how long it takes before inactive TCP & UDP connections are forgotten by the router. If you set them too low then the router will forget connections too quickly and active connections will be dropped.
- If you start getting frequent disconnections in particular programs but not others (commonly Instant Messenger programs) then raise your TCP timeout to at least 600 or more.
If you want about 15% more RAM available, which can help the router reach the theoretical maximum of 4096 ports:
- First, make sure the CLI is enabled. This way, it is possible to connect to the DD-WRT Device and turn the Web Interface back on when needed.
- Then turn off the Web Interface. This is done through the Web Interface. Apply your changes.
- When starting the Web Interface on an as-needed basis, use the command 'httpd'. To close it later, use the command 'killall httpd'.
At this point, you are finished. If you want to look at more technical information, and the technical results, more information is presented below.
[edit] Increasing Max Connection count beyond limits of GUI
Please note that this is more or less experimental and may compromise your router's stability.
From the thread: >>Here is a solution for increasing the maximum number of connections in Kernel 2.6: K2.6 is very different regarding ip_conntrack_max (IP Filter Maximum Ports in the GUI) and it's hash table compared to the older kernel.
ip_conntrack_max sets the maximum number of connections that can be kept at one time. Most people here seems to decrease the default timeout (3600s) for these connections (which results in other problems) instead of increasing the maximum value.
On routers with large amount of RAM (64 MB+ for example) one could increase this by 10 times from the default max of 4096 without any problem.
From what I understand you also have to increase the hash table where these are stored in order to benefit from this increase. In the older kernel this was not possible since one would have to set this value before booting (and there was no nvram setting for that?).
Although in K2.6 one can change booth of these in realtime dynamically without restarting any process. A hashsize equaly large to the conntrack_max, has the best performance as I understand. Also since K2.4.21 the hashsize performs best with a value that is a power of 2 ex. 2^14 = 16384. (I have also used this as an example)
Since K2.4.23 (and newer), to change ip_conntrack_max:
echo "16384" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_max
Since K2.6.20 (and newer), to change the hashsize:
echo "16384" > /sys/module/nf_conntrack/parameters/hashsize
But none of these will be stored after a reboot, since the values are stored in RAM.
Permanently change ip_conntrack_max, ether use the webgui or write:
nvram set ip_conntrack_max=16384 nvram commit reboot
I haven't found any way to permanently change the hashsize parameter. Although since you now in K2.6 can change it in realtime, you can just add it to your startup script and it should do the job.
echo "16384" > /sys/module/nf_conntrack/parameters/hashsize
[edit] Checking the Results
Besides an obvious improvement in performance, there is a way to check via CLI the technical results:
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established 90 cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_udp_timeout_stream 90
[edit] Commonly mentioned out-dated solution & The modern equivalent
The following command is often recommended in forums, but only applies to older versions of the DD-WRT firmware up to V23SP1:
echo '600 1800 120 60 120 120 10 60 30 120' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeouts
echo '30 60' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_conntrack_udp_timeouts
Note: The method above, for resolving slowdown issues, does not apply for DD-WRT v23 SP2 firmware and beyond. Furthermore, this command only applies to TCP traffic issues only, not UDP issues.
The newer firmwares' (V23SP2 and newer) 2.4.23 kernel ignores both of these files. For this method to work in later kernels, the timeout values must be placed in individual files. The correct files are located in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ as shown below.
[edit] How It Works
Few people know what this line actually does. It is a list for all possible TCP states and their timeouts in seconds. See the table below (they are in the correct order):
State Timeout value NONE 10 minutes ESTABLISHED 30 minutes (default is 5 days) SYN_SENT 2 minutes SYN_RECV 60 seconds FIN_WAIT 2 minutes TIME_WAIT 2 minutes CLOSE 10 seconds CLOSE_WAIT 60 seconds (default is 12 hours) LAST_ACK 30 seconds LISTEN 2 minutes
The full list of files in the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ directory that one can populate to get the same effect on v23 SP2 and later firmwares is:
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_generic_timeout /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_icmp_timeout /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_close /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_close_wait /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_syn_sent /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_syn_recv /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_fin_wait /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_time_wait /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_tcp_timeout_last_ack /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_udp_timeout /proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_udp_timeout_stream
[edit] Script
The following script should set these values automatically. It can be installed by copying it into Administration -> Commands and clicking Save Startup.
If anyone's wondering, the 'prefix' var is there to save space in nvram.
prefix=/proc/sys/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack echo 600 > ${prefix}_generic_timeout echo 30 > ${prefix}_udp_timeout echo 60 > ${prefix}_udp_timeout_stream echo 1800 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_established echo 120 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_syn_sent echo 60 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_syn_recv echo 120 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_fin_wait echo 120 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_time_wait echo 10 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_close echo 60 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_close_wait echo 30 > ${prefix}_tcp_timeout_last_ack
[edit] AIM, ICQ and other IM programs
If you're using certain IM clients such as ICQ or AIM (or other applications which do not send frequent keep-alive packets), you should set TCP timeout to 300 or 600 to help them stay connected. As higher values for TCP may cause hangups when you're dealing with very heavy P2P traffic, you might want to experiment with these values.
[edit] More help
DD-WRT has an inbuild proxy feature that allows rewriting of HTML content to filter ActiveX cookies, etc. As this is load-intensive, you may want to disable this feature, to give the DD-WRT Device more time to deal with open port requests. This should be done under Security->Firewall.
Unfortunately this function has 3 bugs:
- When unchecking all 4 checkboxes the rewriting proxy may still be running (you might have to reboot)
- The proxy drops connections if under heavy load
- One user notes: It probably runs haywire checking traffic on other ports than 80, hence the slowdown with P2P applications (unconfirmed)
A solution is to disable the firewall (which is not recommended): Security->Firewall. This can also fix slow-downs.
(This behavior has been seen in v22 and v23. Please report this to the maintainer and put it in the bug database.)
[edit] Bug in older WRT54G/S
Apparently there is a bug in the WRT54GS v2.2. The bug involves a fatal memory access error due to a difference in the CPU clock speed and the clock speed on the memory bus. This bug causes connections to be dropped when transferring large files. New versions of the Linksys firmware overclock the CPU to 216 MHz. This can be fixed by logging into the router via SSH or Telnet and executing the following commands:
nvram set clkfreq=216 nvram commit reboot
When running DD-WRT micro v23sp2 on a WRT54G v5 the clock speed can be adjusted by logging into the router via SSH or Telnet and executing the following commands:
nvram set overclocking=216 nvram commit reboot
After rebooting the router you can confirm that the new clock speed has applied by checking the Status page of the DD-WRT GUI or by logging in via Telnet and executing the following:
nvram get clkfreq
[edit] More help: Adjust your P2P applications
For P2P applications, and especially Bittorrent, the problem can be an overwhelming number of incoming connections. Try disabling DHT and/or setting a limit to the number of peers/incoming connections to around 100 or so. See the Azureus page regarding this.
[edit] More help: Heat-sinks
Consumer routers are not designed for high load applications, but instead for low cost. They often lack heatsinks on the main chips as a cost and space saving measure. Unfortunately, they can overheat when dealing with the load of continuous, heavy traffic.
Installing heat sinks, like those used for desktop system chipsets but smaller, does help this problem. A small amount of heat-transfer solution and some cyanoacrylate [the chemical name for SuperGlue-style glues, although much better quality versions can be found at hobby and electronics stores and online]. Clearance [distance to the inside-top of the router case] is a consideration.
Note that some Linksys routers in particular are intended to be assembled, not disassembled. You may need to use glue or other ugly ways to get the case back together after opening.
[edit] More Help: Web Traffic Daemon on v24x
If you are unable to load the WebUI and have already tried the TCP timeout tweaks, try turning off the WAN Traffic Daemon. This has been known to cause problems up to v24 for the D-Link DIR-300.
[edit] Known issues with Applications/Operating Systems
- Applications
- When using Steam (of Valve) and when you refresh your server list, it might cause your router in the default setup, to reboot since it opens many connections. You can remedy this issue by following the steps on this Steam suport page: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4487-YUOC-6922
[edit] p2p protocoll info
applejuice audiogalaxy tcp ares tcp bearshare tcp bittorrent tcp/udp directconnect tcp edonkey tcp/udp fasttrak/kazaa tcp/udp freenet gnucleuslan gnutella tcp goboogy hotline imesh kugoo mute tcp napster tcp openft tcp pando tcp soribada tcp soulseek tcp tesla waste winmx tcp xdcc xunlei tcp/udp


text:
Indiana Governor Portrait Artist: Henry M. Colcord (1828? - 1906)
Henry M. Colcord
Artist, Indiana Governors' Portrait Collection
James Douglas Williams (1808-1880)
Governor of Indiana
January 8, 1877-November 20, 1880
Artist: Henry M. Colcord, American, 1828(?)-1906(?)(1)
oil on canvas, 50 x 40 (127.0 x 101.1)
THE PORTRAIT of James D. Williams has puzzled historians for some time due to a lack of information regarding the artist who painted it. Dunn reported that it was painted by "a Mr. Colcord, an unknown transient." (2) Information from various sources has been accumulated since the first inquiries were made, but the story of Colcord's life and work remains sketchy. The earliest reference to this artist indicated that he was in Indianapolis in 1877, when he exhibited two portraits at Lieber's Art Emporium.(3) According to city directories of the period, an artist named Harry M. Colcord had a studio at 37 West Washington Street in Indianapolis in 1878 and 1879. An "H. Colcord" appeared as the contributor of a portrait in a catalogue for the 1878 exhibition sponsored by the Indiana Art Association, held in Indianapolis. The dropping of Colcord's name from the city directory after 1879 suggests that he left Indianapolis in 1880. It is then safe to assume that the portrait of James D. Williams was painted while the governor was in office, between 1877 and 1880. (4)
Colcord's manner of painting is characteristic of painters who have had little or no academic training, although the portrait reflects the artist's natural ability and sense of pleasing design. The flattened, angular forms create a severe effect, appropriate for the delineation of so plain and unaffected a man as James Williams.
Colcord's canvas is large, and upon it he has worked out an imposing composition. The governor sits facing the front, his right arm leaning on a table, his legs crossed, and his eyes directed toward the observer. The painting is laden with the cliches of official portraiture: a deliberate pose, table piled high with papers and books, and the ubiquitous column with draped curtain. Williams's customary "blue jeans" dress is a striking contrast to the strictly official setting. This portrayal of him as a tall, rawboned man with high cheekbones and large hands, is in keeping with early descriptions.
(1) Birth and death dates for Harry M. Colcord were found in the documentary files for the paintings by this artist in the Chicago Historical Society. The place of birth and death and the source for this information were not indicated, and they should therefore be confirmed before they are taken as fact.
(2) Dunn, Greater Indianapolis, I, 481.
(3) Indianapolis Saturday Herald, May 12, 1877, as cited in Peat, Pioneer Painters of Indiana, p. 200.
(4) It is not known where Colcord went upon leaving Indianapolis, but a group of four dated portraits by a Henry (a name interchangeable with "Harry") M. Colcord in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society sheds a somewhat dim light on the subsequent activities of this evasive artist. Sometime between 1880 and 1885, presumably in Chicago, Colcord painted a copy of George Peter Alexander Healy's portrait of the Chicago merchant, banker, and philanthropist Walter Loomis Newberry, the original of which is in the Newberry Library in Chicago. A portrait painted from life by Colcord in 1892 of Reverend Henry Gideon Perry, a Chicago Episcopalian priest, provides confirmation of the artist's activity in Chicago, although as much as twelve years later. The Chicago city directories for 1891, 1892, and 1893 list a James Colcord, artist, at 169 North Clark Street, and given the knowledge of Henry Colcord's presence in Chicago at that time, it is tempting to assume a familial connection between them. In 1896, Henry Colcord is himself listed in the city directory as artist, at 1807 Auditorium Tower. In this year Colcord painted the portrait of Abraham Lincoln from an ambrotype in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society. The fourth dated portrait in the collection by Colcord is that of John Nelson Jewett, an Illinois state senator and prosperous Chicago lawyer. Painted in 1897, the portrait is the latest document of Colcord's artistic activity. More detailed information will hopefully be compiled at a future date regarding this artist whose reputation in his own time was sufficiently secure to attract several prestigious commissions.
Source: Peat, Wilbur D. Portraits and Painters of the Governors of Indiana 1800-1978. Revised, edited and with new entries by Diane Gail Lazarus, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Biographies of the governors by Lana Ruegamer, Indiana Historical Society. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society and Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1978.


text:
Human Impacts in the Southeast Pacific Region
What is the connection between human activity in western Chile and Peru and the Southeast Pacific climate system? Much of this region is very sparsely populated. The lack of rainfall limits where people can live. Most people in this region live in the large coastal or port cities such as Santiago, Valparaiso, Concepcion, Iquique, and Antofagasta in Chile and in Lima and Arequipa in Peru.
Mining is very important in this region. There is a rich variety of minerals, including copper, nitrates, iron, manganese, molybdenum, gold, and silver. This region is one of the world's largest copper-mining centers. The aerosols that are released as part of the copper smelting process will be studied as part of the VOCALS field experiment. This is because aerosols impact the formation of clouds. Learning more about how aerosols impact cloud formation is a key part of VOCALS science.
The nutrient rich coastal waters support a fishing industry that is another important economic activity in this region. Fishing and processing fish are very important especially in larger port cities such as Iquique and Arica. VOCALS scientists are interested in the impact of changing climates on commercial fisheries. If ocean temperatures warm, how will the fish populations be impacted?


text:
3D Printing and Legos: Perfect Together
New software allows designers to "legofy" their prototypes, eliminating hours of time spent waiting for 3D printers to churn out their widgets.
But it's a slow thrill.
3D printing, even for a small object, can take a loooooong time. If you're just trying to make a little widget on a one-off basis, (say a piece for a board game or something), a little wait while one strip of plastic is extruded upon another is no big deal. But for professional designers, speed is, doctoral student Stefanie Mueller says , "mission critical."
According to Mueller, designers often allow their plans to print overnight, so as to waste less time. But that limits them to "a single iteration per day." Over a whole design process, that really gums up the works. "A typical iteration process when refining a prototype easily adds up to a week—even though the actual design work may not have taken longer than a day," she wrote to me. The whole process gets bottlenecked at the 3D printer.
This is why Mueller built faBrickator , a program that marries 3D printing with a building material beloved around the world: Legos. Using faBrickator, designers can sub Legos into their designs, and only print small pieces.
For example, Mueller says, consider this design for a head-mounted visual display glasses:
For such a project, the details of the casing will require less attention than the part around the lenses, which will need to be tinkered with until the right optical path is achieved. To print the entire thing takes about 14 hours, Mueller says. But the whole thing doesn't need to be printed each time to perfect just one part. With faBrickator, Mueller explained to me, designers can "mark the lens mounts as 'high-resolution'," which will leave those parts for the 3D printer. "faBrickator then exports these parts for 3D printing and generates instructions that show users how to create everything else from Lego bricks. If users iterate on the design later, faBrickator offers even greater benefit as it allows re-printing only the elements that changed."
She demonstrates how that works in the video below:
Mueller says that many experienced designers do this kind of blending of 3D printed bespoke parts and existing materials already, but doing so "requires a good amount of ingenuity and experience." With faBrickator, built at the Human Computer Interaction Lab at Hasso Plattner Institute , designers easily play with which parts need to be custom built and which Legos can easily substitute. After all the parts are perfected, designers can revert the whole project to 3D printing, and drop all the Legos out.


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Lucille Burgess of Mitchell passed away Monday afternoon, February 8th at Garden Villa at the age of 96.
Born in 1913 in Crawford County to parents Ed and Agnes (Roberson) Velecin, she had been married to Marrill Charles Burgess since 1934.
Lucille was a graduate of Orleans High School in the class of 1930 and attended business college in Denver, Colorado.
She was a homemaker, worked at Mitchell's Riley School and Bell's Mendit Shop, was a member of the First Christian Church, Fleur-de-Lis and served as a Girl Scout leader.
She is survived by two sons, Charles Edwin Burgess and his wife Ann; William E. Burgess and his wife Marie; two daughters, Barbara Ann Sorrells and her husband Dr. George, Marilyn Jean Sadek and her husband Jerry; as well as one sister, Ruth Stalcup.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; one sister, Mildred Kowalczyk and one grandson.
Funeral services will be held on Saturday, February 13th at 10:30AM in the Memorial Chapel of Chastain Funeral Home with burial to follow in Mitchell Cemetery.
Visitation will be from 3:00PM until 7:00PM on Friday and from 9:30AM until the hour of service on Saturday at the funeral home.


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A HALF CENTURY into his career, one thing is clear: Thomas Pynchon plays insider baseball. Whatever else he may be attempting, his novels always include a knowing nod to the already initiated. Bleeding Edge is no exception. This time, our guide through the underworld is one Maxine Tarnow, a second take on Oedipa Maas, revised and reanimated on the Right Coast. Much like Pynchon's other defective detectives, Maxine is forever unraveling an irresoluble conspiracy, and the readers, along for the ride, are equally unable to untangle the yarn. With all this reweaving, however, there's plenty for Pynchon's previous visitors to enjoy. Misha and Grisha, for example, the cartoonish Russian hench-children from Against the Day, get a giggling reboot. Longtime Pynchoniacs on the lookout for Pig Bodine won't be entirely disappointed either. The porcine one may not make an appearance, but we do get his snooty surrogate, a freelance professional nose named Conkling Speedwell. Conkling, moreover, has a "proösmic" colleague who can foresmell the events of 9/11, just as Slothrop's erections foretold an earlier screaming that came across the sky. It isn't just the characters that are redoubled and refracted, however. Pynchon also recycles most of his other methodological tics — from the farcical, made-for-TV movies that litter Vineland to the soundtrack that accompanies Inherent Vice. It's déjà vu, as Yogi Berra always sez, all over again.
So several chapters in, when "bleeding-edge technology" is virtually dismissed — "No proven use, high risk, something only early-adoption addicts feel comfortable with" — we're already hip to the double entendre. This isn't just a novel that recycles, nor is it merely a novel that knows it recycles. This is a novel that knows that its readers know that it recycles. And it delights in those instances. When Meatball Flag's hit single "Soul Gidget" reappears, for example, we don't get the original song or even a cover version, but rather eight bars of a cappella backup: the imaginary black surf music of Inherent Vice has been reimagined as accompaniment to a second-order sing-a-long. An early indication of the self-reflexive riffing-to-come appears just eight pages in, as the novel's documentarian-in-chief, Reg Despard, bootlegs first-run films with a handheld camcorder:
When Reg discovered the zoom feature on his camcorder, there was a lot of zooming in and out for what you'd have to call its own sake, details of human anatomy, extras in crowd scenes, hip looking cars in the background traffic, so forth. One fateful day in Washington Square, Reg happened to sell one of his cassettes to a professor at NYU who taught film, who next day came running down the street after Reg to ask, out of breath, if Reg knew how far ahead of the leading edge of this post-postmodern art form he was working, "with your neo-Brechtian subversion of the diegesis."
And so we're off, Pynchon pirating his own oeuvre, hawking copies of copies with a wink and a nod.
But wait — there's more. Re-presenting his previous work isn't the only way that Pynchon weaves his web. He also plays the insider game by overloading the text with obscure particulars. There is, in other words, a lot of zooming in and out for what you'd have to call its own sake, a welter of specific — and occasionally unsettling — minutiae. The vertiginous effect that results does not come from a rapid change in perspective, but rather from the banality of the details themselves — plain, ordinary, and inconsequentially real. The most paranoid among us (Andrew Leonard at Salon?) begin to believe that Pynchon must actually be reading us, and, in a way, he is. The trick amounts to the literary equivalent of a "cold reading," a paranoid narrative inducing the same by offering readers a multitude of "relatable" (if meaningless) details. Primed for paranoia, we personally identify with the occasional particular, and the effect can be unsettling. My own frisson of familiarity, for what it's worth, was triggered by a pair of gratuitous Midwestern references: Duck Creek Plaza in Bettendorf and the Hy-Vee commercial that Maxine's kids can't stop singing. Neither have anything to do with anything, but they're creepily specific, especially if one was the turnaround for your high school cross country team, and the other, well, you appeared in one of those blasted commercials as a high school bagboy. Suddenly you're wondering what the hell Pynchon was doing in the Quad Cities. (Nothing, likely — at least that's how I remember high school.)
These two methods of provoking engagement with the text are worlds away from the brand of self-identification on which Oprah built her literary empire. There are few characters with any psychological depth, no edifying bourgeois trajectories, and certainly no readymade solutions for the self-help generation. For all the reality in Bleeding Edge, in other words, we're still not getting much of the realism that my students and Michiko Kakutani are always grumbling after. (And, yes, in her latest dispatch, wired in from wherever it is she lives in the nineteenth century, Kakutanidismisses this one too, just as she does all the other contemporary fiction worth reading.)
But realism isn't the point, even when reality is. The novel's biggest surprise, perhaps, is that 9/11 actually happens. We get the event itself — planes flying into the World Trade Center — right there in Chapter 29. It's a cross up, a quick pitch, something unexpected. As even the casual Pynchon fan can tell you, the man rarely delivers the event. He's more likely to leave us with a bouncing ball, waiting for the bomb or the auctioneer or whatever. But not this time. The move, ultimately, is rather audacious, for it forces Pynchon to spend the balance of the novel navigating the narratives of the real world, a minefield of batshit crazy truther nonsense.
In his 1990 essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," David Foster Wallace famously attempts to see a way forward for American fiction. Mass televisual culture, he offers, has co-opted and usurped the tropes and techniques of postmodern literary fiction. Consequently, irony has lost its teeth, become a televisual trick, the dominant cultural mode rather than a legitimate countercultural response. Whatever one thinks of Wallace's prescriptive solution (a literary coup engineered by a band of sincere anti-rebels, apparently), he certainly puts his finger on the mass-cultural zeitgeist of the decade to follow: the 90s were "rather ironic."
Fast forward a few years. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we were inundated with even more middle-minded platitudes than usual. For a few months, every other commentator you encountered was touting "the death of irony," as though one tragic, real-world event had somehow eliminated all access to a literary device. It was a fascinating fiction, though. If mass culture had co-opted postmodernism's irony, then why not post-postmodernism's sincerity as well? In Bleeding Edge, this issue is brought to the fore by Maxine's friend Heidi, who
has been working on an article for the Journal of Memespace Cartography she's calling "Heteronormative Rising Star, Homophobic Dark Companion," which argues that irony, assumed to be a key element of gay humor and popular through the nineties, has now become another collateral casualty of 11 September because it somehow did not keep the tragedy from happening. "As if somehow irony," she recaps for Maxine, "as practiced by a giggling mincing fifth column, actually brought on the events of 11 September, by keeping the country insufficiently serious — weakening its grip on 'reality.' So all kinds of make-believe — forget the delusional state the country's in already — must suffer as well. Everything has to be literal now."
Heidi goes on to use her "death of irony" critique to explain the explosion of reality television in post-9/11 America. "Somebody," she tells Maxine, "needs this nation of starers believing they're all wised up at last, hardened and hip to the human condition, freed from the fictions that led them so astray, as if paying attention to made-up lives was some form of evil drug abuse that the collapse of the towers cured by scaring everybody straight again."
Here and elsewhere in Bleeding Edge, Pynchon confronts the legacy of postmodern fiction directly. Heidi's pseudo-scholarly paper is unmistakably a vehicle for poking fun at academia, with our obscure journals, pretentious formulations, and tortuous arguments, but Pynchon buries a cultural critique — and one that we're clearly supposed to take "straight" — right in the middle of it all. Ironized critique with a truthy nougat center. What's more, Pynchon is not only mocking the cultural backlash against irony, but he's also issuing a gentle rebuke to the likes of Wallace. It's 2013, and here's the grand old man of postmodern letters, rapping on about mixtapes and purple drank, still spinning the same metafictional yarn that supposedly expired sometime back in the 1980s. But while Pynchon might be getting the last laugh, the laughter is a little nervous, and not because the culture is shot through with irony, or sincerity, or counter-irony, but because his paranoid postmodern conspiracies have finally gone viral.
At the beginning of Chapter 30, immediately following the events of 9/11, we get three full pages of narratorial commentary, the only such passage in the entire novel. It is, in some respects, a mimetic move: as the real world wrings it hands and tries to come to grips with the "death of irony" and our "new reality," Pynchon's narrator takes a step away from his fiction. The three pages that follow could have been lifted from a non-fiction period piece, a 9/11 version of "Journey into the Mind of Watts" or some similar essay. "If you read nothing but the Newspaper of Record," the section begins,
you might believe that New York City, like the nation, united in sorrow and shock, has risen to the challenge of global jihadism, joining a righteous crusade Bush's people are now calling the War on Terror. If you go to other sources — the Internet, for example — you might get a different picture. Out in the vast undefined anarchism of cyberspace, among the billions of self-resonant fantasies, dark possibilities are beginning to emerge.
"Oh, shit," I think, on hitting this passage for the first time, "Pynchon's gone truther." Not quite. Before the section has even ended, it becomes clear that the narrator has no time for certain real-world conspiracy theories (including, for example, the allegation that a secret Muslim network warned all NYC pushcart operators to stay home on 9/11). What does concern the narrator is how such beliefs "take hold of the civic imagination," and, subsequently, how these narratives are then broadly exploited.
Nevertheless, for the final eleven chapters, Pynchon must walk the finest of lines — guiding the novel's own "conspiracy theory" through a minefield of real-world, false-flag fictions. Ultimately, part of the pleasure of Bleeding Edge is watching a master of postmodern paranoia navigate fiction's complicity in the web-driven conspiracies of the real world. If television usurped postmodern irony, the Internet has certainly inherited its paranoia, and Pynchon's Bleeding Edge endeavors to subtly subvert this virtual creep.
More Los Angeles Review of Books
Richard Rayner on American Dream Machine
Fabulous Monsters: Matthew Specktor's "American Dream Machine"RICHARD RAYNER April 1, 2013 -
Jillian Goodman on The Pat Hobby Stories and The Crack-Up and The Last Tycoon
Second Acts: F. Scott Fitzgerald in HollywoodJILLIAN GOODMAN June 6, 2013


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C.S. Lewis on Evolution
C. S. Lewis' views on evolution come up every once in a while. Lewis produced most of his works before the birth of the modern creationist movement. For this reason (and because his background was in English Litt and not in science) he seems to be rather accomodating at times to the theory of evolution. Despite the factors working against his developing a critical view of the theory he could use material from his field of knowledge to critically evaluate this theory. Logic he could use VERY efficiently as well. The following lenghty quote is from an essay entitled Is Theology Poetry? which is found in They Asked for a Paper. (1962 Geoffrey Bles London 211 p.) –Paul Gosselin
"Consider for a few moments the enormous aesthetic claim of its (Christian theology – PG) chief contemporary rival – what we may loosely call the Scientific Outlook…Supposing this to be a myth, is it not one of the finest myths which human imagination has yet produced? The play is preceded by the most austere of all preludes: the infinite void, and matter restlessly moving to bring forth it knows not what. Then, by the millionth millionth chance – what tragic irony – the conditions at one point of space and time bubble up into that tiny fermentation which is the beginning of life. Everything seems to be against the infant hero of our drama – just as everthing seems against the youngest son or ill-used stepdaugther at the opening of a fairy-tale. But life somehow wins through. With infinite suffering, against all but insuperable obstacles, it spreads, it breeds, it complicates itself: from the amoeba up to the plant, up to the reptile, up to the mammal. We glance briefly at the age of monsters. Dragons prowl the earth, devour one another and die. Then comes the theme of the younger son and the ugly duckling once more. As the weak, tiny spark of life began amidst the huge hostilities of the inanimate, so now again, amidst the beasts that are far larger and stronger than he, there comes forth a little naked, shivering, cowering creature, shuffling, not yet erect, promising nothing: the product of another millionth millionth chance. Yet somehow he thrives. He becomes the Cave Man with his club and his flints, muttering and growling over his enemies' bones, dragging his screaming mate by her hair (I could never quite make out why), tearing his children to pieces in fierce jealousy till one of them is old enough to tear him, cowering before the terrible gods whom he has created in his own image. But these are only growing pains. Wait till the next Act. There he is becoming true Man. He learns to master nature. Science comes and dissipates the superstitions of his infancy. More and more he becomes the controller of his own fate. Passing hastily over the present (for it is a mere nothing by the time-scale we are using), you follow him on into the future. See him in the last Act, though not the last scene, of this great mystery. A race of demigods now rule the planet – and perhaps more than the planet – for eugenics have made certain that only demigods will be born, and psycho-analysis that none of them shall lose or smirch his divinity, and communism that all which divinity requires shall be ready to their hands. Man has ascended his throne. Hence forward he has nothing to do but to practise virtue, to grow in wisdom, to be happy. And now, mark the final stroke of genius. If the myth stopped at that point, it might be a little pathetic (sic). It would lack the highest grandeur of which human imagination is capable. The last scene reverses all. We have the Twilight of the Gods. All this time, silently, unceasingly, out of all reach of human power, Nature, the old enemy, has been steadily gnawing away. The sun will cool – all suns will cool – the whole universe will run down. Life (every form of life) will be banished, without hope of return, from every inch of infinite space. All ends in nothingness, and "universal darkness covers all." The pattern of myth thus becomes one of the noblest we can conceive. It is the pattern of many Elizabethan tragedies, where the protagonist's career can be represented by a slowly ascending and then rapidly falling curve, with its highest point in Act IV. You see him climbing up and up, then blazing in his bright meridian, then finally overwhelmed in ruin.
Such a world-drama appeals to every part of us. The early struggles of the hero (a theme delightfully doubled, played first by life, and then by man) appeals to our generosity. His future exaltation gives scope to a reasonable optimism; for the tragic close is so very distant that you need not often think of it–we work with millions of years. And the tragic close it self just gives that irony, that grandeur, which calls forth our defiance, and without which all the rest might cloy. There is a beauty in this myth which well deserves better poetic handling than it has yet received: I hope some great genius will yet crystallise it before the incessant stream of philosophic change carries it all away. I am speaking, of course, of the beauty it has whether you believe it or not. There I can speak from experience: for I, who believe less than half of what it tells me about the past, and less than nothing of what it tells me about the future, am deeply moved when I contemplate it. The only other story–unless, indeed, it is an embodiment of the same story–which similarly moves me is the Nibelung's Ring. Enden sah ich die Welt.
We cannot, therefore, turn down Theology, simply because it does not avoid being poetical. All world views yield poetry to those who believe them by the mere fact of being believed. And nearly all have certain poetical merits whether you believe them or not. This is what we should expect. Man is a poetical animal and touches nothing which he does not adorn.
There are, however, two other lines of thought which might lead us to call Theology a mere poetry, and these I must now consider. In the first place, it certainly contains elements similar to those which we find in many early, and even savage, religions. And those elements in the early religions may now seem to us to be poetical. The question here is rather complicated. We now regard the death and return of Balder as a poetical idea, a myth. We are invited to infer thence that the death and resurrection of Christ is a poetical idea, a myth. But we are not really starting with the datum "Both are poetical" and thence arguing "Therefore both are false". Part of the poetical aroma which hangs about Balder is, I believe, due to the fact that we have already come to disbelieve in him. So that disbelief not poetical experience, is the real starting point of the argument. But this is perhaps an over-subtlety, certainly a subtlety, and I will leave it on one side.
What light is really thrown on the truth or falsehood of Christian Theology by the occurrence of similar ideas in Pagan religion. I think the answer was very well given a fortnight ago by Mr. Brown. Supposing, for purposes of argument, that Christianity is true, then it could avoid all coincidence with other religions only on the supposition that all other religions are one hundred per cent erroneous. To which, you remember, Professor Price replied by agreeing with Mr. Brown and saying: "Yes. From these resemblances you may conclude not 'so much the worse for the Christians' but 'so much the better for the Pagans'." The truth is that the resemblances tell nothing either for or against the truth of Christian Theology. If you start from the assumption that the Theology is false, the resemblances are quite consistent with that assumption. One would expect creatures of the same sort, faced with the same universe, to make the same false guess more than once. But if you start with the assumption that the Theology is true, the resemblances fit in equally well. Theology, while saying that a special illumination has been vouchsafed to Christians and (earlier) to Jews, also says that there is some reason. The picture so often painted of Christians huddling together on an ever narrower strip of beach while the incoming tide of "Science" mounts higher and higher, corresponds to nothing in my own experience.
That grand myth which I asked you to admire a few minutes ago is not for me a hostile novelty breaking in on my traditional beliefs. On the contrary, that cosmology is what I started from. Deepening distrust and final abandonment of it long preceded my conversion to Christianity. Long before I believed Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it; it is the one we touched on a fortnight ago. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or the remotest part obeys the thought–laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory-in other words, unless Reason is an absolute–all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.
The difficulty is to me a fatal one; and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare's nest but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought from the very beginning. The man who has once understood the situation is compelled henceforth to regard the scientific cosmology as being, in principle, a myth; though no doubt a great many true particulars have been worked into it. (1) It is not irrelevant, in considering the mythical character of this cosmology to notice that the two great imaginative expressions of it are earlier than the evidence: Keats's Hyperion and the Nibelung's Ring are pre-Darwinian works. After that it is hardly worth noticing minor difficulties. Yet these are many and serious. The Bergsonian critique of orthodox Darwinism is not easy to answer. More disquieting still is Professor D. M. S. Watson's defence. "Evolution itself," he wrote, "is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or… can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Has it come to that? Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice. Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God .Even, however, if Evolution in the strict biological sense has some better grounds than Professor Watson suggests–and I can't help thinking it must–we should distinguish Evolution in this strict sense from what may be called the universal evolutionism of modern thought. By universal evolutionism I mean the belief that the very formula of universal process is from imperfect to perfect, from small beginnings to great endings, from the rudimentary to the elaborate: the belief which makes people find it natural to think that morality springs from savage taboos, adult sentiment from infantile sexual maladjustments, thought from instinct, mind from matter, organic from inorganic, cosmos from chaos. This is perhaps the deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world. It seems to me immensely unplausible, because it makes the general course of nature so very unlike those parts of nature we can observe. You remember the old puzzle as to whether the owl came from the egg or the egg from the owl. The modern acquiescence in universal evolutionism is a kind of optical illusion, produced by attending exclusively to the owls emergence from the egg. We are taught from childhood to notice how the perfect oak grows from the acorn and to forget that the acorn itself was dropped by a perfect oak. We are reminded constantly that the adult human being was an embryo, never that the life of the embryo came from two adult human beings. We love to notice that the express engine of today is the descendant of the "rocket;" we do not equally remember that the " Rocket" springs not from some even more rudimentary engine, but from something much more perfect and complicated than itself-namely, a man of genius. The obviousness or naturalness which most people seem to find in the idea of emergent evolution thus seems to be a pure hallucination.
On these grounds and others like them one is driven to think that whatever else may be true, the popular scientific cosmology at any rate is certainly not. I left that ship not at the call of poetry but because I thought it could not keep afloat. Something like philosophical idealism or Theism must, at the very worst, be less untrue than that. And idealism turned out, when you took it seriously, to be disguised Theism. And once you accepted Theism you could not ignore the claims of Christ. And when you examined them it appeared to me that you could adopt no middle position. Either he was a lunatic, or God. And He was not a lunatic.
I was taught at school, when I had done a sum, to "prove my answer." The proof or verification of my Christian answer to the cosmic sum is this. When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonising it with some particular truths which are embedded in the mythical cosmology derived from science. But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole. Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of that primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come, by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this is to me the final test. This is how I distinguish dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams: I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner: I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. — The Oxford Socratic Club, 1944. pp. 154-165
1. Quoted in Science and the B.B.C., Nineteenth Century, April, 1943. December 12, 2000.


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Last week, Boardwalk Empire introduced some new antagonists, namely Dr. Narcisse and J. Edgar Hoover, and followed Richard Harrow to his sister's house and a job left unfinished while Nucky headed to Tampa. But if you were hoping to get more from the G-Man himself or a return visit to Al Capone as he flexes his muscles and uses Van Alden, you didn't get that in this week's episode, "Acres of Diamonds," named after the famous Russell Conwell speech that formed the basis of the establishment of Temple University. (Hey, I lived in Philly and had friends going to Temple; you pick up that kind of thing that way.)
This week, Nucky has arrived in Tampa, which in Boardwalk Empire America is right on the gulf as if Pinellas County doesn't exist (that ain't no bay upon which Nucky's looking out). Richard's burying his gun, and Narcisse is visited in Harlem by Arnold Rothstein, who is there at Narcisse's request to sell him some heroin for redistribution to what Narcisse calls his "Libyan" markets. At Emma's house, the very pregnant widow is being courted by a gregarious gentleman who keeps calling Richard "Rick," and Richard offers to pay the taxes, remembering the call from the "assessor" the day before. But Emma says she paid the taxes already; she sold the Hudson to raise the money. Richard is, of course, confused. He doesn't know that the "assessor" on the phone wasn't the assessor, nor that Carl Billings, the guy who hired him, is now coming to get him. He'll find out before the hour's over.
Dining at the resort in Tampa, Nucky overhears a conversation at the next table about a shady land deal, and after the mark leaves, he engages the salesman in a conversation that gives Nucky more information about the separate land deal he's about to be pitched: seems that the area is being developed for housing and business, and is about to become a lot less remote and isolated. Good for regular business, but not for Nucky's kind.
A gathering at Temple University listening to the "Acres of Diamonds" speech on the Victrola is joined by Eli's son Willie, who promises to score some booze for a party, all the better to impress the co-eds. Back in Atlantic City, Gillian and the Piggly Wiggly guy, Roy, are still looking at apartments. and he asks her to join him at a business dinner at which his client thinks he's still married, not, as is the case, in the process of divorcing.
Chalky and Dunn are visited at the Onyx Club by part-owner Narcisse and a new performer, a jazz singer with the unlikely name of Daughter Maitland. Meanwhile, Willie and a friend try to get booze from Mickey Doyle, who refuses, and when Willie snatches a case on his way out, Doyle slugs him, and sends him on his way: "We'll keep this between ourselves. Man-to-man. Capiche?… Take the booze, kid." And Willie does. Oh, he's going to be popular. (Insert State Store joke for Pennsylvania readers.)
Richard is going through things left in a barn when Carl Billings shows up with an accomplice brandishing a gun. They take his wallet, note that the money they gave him is still there, and when Billings calls him stupid, Richard pulls a knife and stabs his assailant. Billings pulls a gun, and, as he prepares to pull the trigger and says "I'm doin' you a favor," gets his brains blown out… by Emma, who arrived just in the nick of time with her shotgun. She's not nearly as hesitant to pull a trigger as Richard has been lately. But this is not what a pregnant single mom needs to be happening in her household.
At Sally's speakeasy in Tampa, Nucky is meeting with his potential partners in the bootlegging business — bootlegger McCoy and Tampa underworld big shot Tucker — and tells them he's not interested, because he now knows the land they're proposing to use for the operation is surrounded by land being developed for housing, schools, churches, etc. Can't have that, Nucky reasons, not when the trucks full of booze would have to pass through town. No deal, he announces, to the consternation of the partners left hanging.
Roy and Gillian are with the business associate couple at the Onyx Club, where they listen to the new singer and Gillian goes pale when the couple says they're from Evansville, Indiana. (Remember that kid who looked like Jimmy who Gillian killed so she could pass him off as her missing son and collect his assets? He was from Evansville, too….) She heads to the powder room, visibly disappointed when the businessman's wife says she'll join her. I mean, you want some privacy to shoot up, and there's always someone interfering. At Temple, the party's raging, and when Willie saves a girl from being hit on by a lout, he ends up making out with her upstairs. And in Tampa, bootlegger McCoy opens up to Nucky: He owes Tucker $200,000. The deal was supposed to be his way of paying it off. This doesn't faze Nucky, who just isn't interested.
At a diner on the Boardwalk, Roy tells Gillian, "We make a really swell team," but at that moment a young man comes up to Gillian recognizing her and starting to tell a story about meeting her with his friend — the friend being Roger, the Jimmy lookalike from Evansville; Roy interrupts and ushers the man away, and Gillian goes to the bathroom to find a leg vein and shoot up. I guess that if you just got reminded that you murdered someone, you'd be poking holes in your veins, too. While the potential Roy-Gillian hookup gets thus delayed, so does that of Willie and the girl at Temple, whose reverie is interrupted by the other partiers walking in on the action and observing that Willie's popped a boner, as if that's the most hilarious and unusual thing a college student can do. Clearly, things were different in college in the '20s.
As the rain falls in Tampa, Nucky repairs to Sally's, where he bellies up to the bar for a chat with Sally herself. He unburdens himself to the bartender (Patricia Arquette, incidentally), who has some wise words for the Corrupt One. While idly playing with a lizard toy at the bar, he muses about sending his son a 10th birthday gift, or whether he would be better off letting the boy forget him. It's interesting to see Nucky have a moment where he lets his guard down, and Sally is the perfect person for it — cynical, seen it all, non-judgmental.
Narcisse and Dunn encounter each other at the club, and while Dunn has his switchblade ready, Narcisse assures him that the Dickey Pastor account has been settled and that he has business to discuss — he suggests that Chalky was ready to give Dunn up to settle the Dickey situation and slides a packet of heroin towards Dunn. "Do you know what this is?," he asks. "This is freedom." Narcisse is offering Dunn a chance to work with him in the heroin trade. But in Tampa, McCoy is dealing with a different kind of offer — Tucker is pounding on his door, bursting in and choking the bootlegger. Before we can see what happened there, we're back in Indiana, where Emma's suitor reminds Richard, "you're only visiting" and Emma tells Richard, "send me an address, let me know where you are." And when they embrace, she adds, "you need to call yourself to account." So Richard will move on, to what, we don't know.
As Nucky prepares to leave Tampa, a lizard toy like the he played with on the bar arrives in a box with a note from Sally to send it to his son Teddy. She's more thoughtful than he is. And then Nucky calls McCoy to surprise him — he's in on the deal, as long as Tucker knows he answers to Nucky. Surprise, indeed; McCoy killed Tucker, and there's blood everywhere. That's how the episode ends, panning down to reveal the horrific scene as McCoy breaks down in tears.
So this episode was one to move the plot along — the side story of Willie Thompson and the Tampa reverie didn't really seem essential, but we got some movement in Narcisse's story and the Gillian-Piggly Wiggly situation. Next week, the episode is called "All In," and poker's involved, so… let's hope it's not more exposition instead of action.


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The Iraqi Tar BabyBy Alan Caruba October 8, 2007As one of those who thought the invasion of Iraq was a good thing to do for both humanitarian and strategic reasons, the flow of books by those who went there after the invasion or by Iraqis who did their best to put it on the path to democracy all tell essentially the same story. Iraqis were totally unprepared to rule themselves and thus create a modern bulwark against the menace of al Qaeda's or Iran's fanatical Islamism. Iraq has become like the tar baby in the Uncle Remus story about the way Brer Fox lured Brer Rabbit into a fight with a tar baby. He got so angry at the tar baby that would not respond to his questions that his vanity got the better of Brer Rabbit who punched it and discovered he was stuck. He butted it with his head and got further stuck. How that rabbit avoided becoming dinner for Brer Fox is unknown, but it is rumored Brer Bear extricated him. The people of the United States are locked into a debate about whether to get out of Iraq without actually looking like we are abandoning it or whether to stay as long as it takes to get Iraq onto a more secular, modern path. There was a history lesson that was in the back of my mind during the entire run-up to the invasion, but I paid it little heed. In retrospect, George Herbert Walker Bush, our 41st President, seems like a genius for not deposing Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq. That decision, however, does not change the fact that Saddam and his sons were permitted to cheat, steal and murder until George W. Bush put an end to their three decades of horror. John Agresto is a former president of St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who was asked to join the Coalition Provisional Authority to help restore Iraq's educational system after the invasion. He has written "Mugged By Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions" and I recommend you read it. Agresto was there from 2003 to 2004 and his observations reflect those raised and educated in the West who must confront a culture so radically different from their own that it becomes a lesson on why the Middle East has remained a stagnant sinkhole for centuries, resistant to change, armored against rational behavior, and chained to barbarism. "It was not America's lack of awareness of 'Iraqi culture' or 'the character of the Middle East' that harmed the mission," wrote Agresto, "so much as our amazing incomprehension of human nature, our blindness to the power of fiercely held notions of religion and morality and honor, our misunderstanding of all that real democracy entails, and our ignorance of the damaging effects of tyranny on a people's outlook and character." "We are in danger of losing all we hoped to accomplish in Iraq because we haven't a clue as to how to be an effective occupying power." Two generations past the remarkable job our grandparents did in a defeated Japan and Germany and we have forgotten how a victorious nation should function to restore a former enemy to the world. That was immediately evident to everyone who watched via television the looting that broke out after the American and coalition forces occupied Baghdad and other cities. The first mistake was not to use our military to put an end to it if, in fact, that was even possible. The only building in Baghdad the coalition protected was the oil ministry. Instead of being welcomed as liberators-the widespread expectation of the neocons-our failure to impose control, i.e., security, on the population led to a cascade of failures. "It was our lack of power-our inexplicable inability to get things moving, to stop the looters and vandals, to find the troublemakers and punish the terrorists-that led to our being held in contempt by so many Iraqis," wrote Agresto. What most of us failed to realize was that the structural damage inflicted by the invasion was nothing compared to the destruction that Iraqis did to their own nation afterward. For an educator, Agresto was saddened to discover that in schools and on university campuses, Iraqis had burned whole libraries and destroyed classrooms, laboratories, and dormitories. This was and is irrational behavior. What destroyed Iraq in the wake of the invasion were Islamic fanaticism and the hatred between the Sunni and Shia sects. The real problem of Iraq and the entire Middle East is Islam. "What we are up against in the world," wrote Agresto, "is not a movement born of poverty, or even born of resentment. It's not a movement solvable by something as political as resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It's a movement born of a number of diverse, strong, and often fierce and sordid feelings and passions." Agresto's understanding of our 231-year experiment with democracy deepened as he confronted the far more ancient inclination of Iraqis to accept the socialist society of Saddam Hussein's Baathist state in which their basic needs were met with food baskets, subsidized housing, low gasoline prices, and other "free" services and perks. Beneath it all was a corruption of such breadth and depth that Americans cannot even fathom its daily role in the lives of Iraqis and others throughout the Middle East. The invasion was a success. The liberation was doomed to failure by the very people whom we naively believed would embrace freedom and democracy. "The Americans who think there's a hunger for liberty in every human breast, or that a respect for the rights of all is natural and not inculcated, or that by spreading democracy we naturally spread liberty, toleration, and moderation, well, then, those Americans are wrong." "Unless we understand that Islamic radicalism is as antagonistic to all the values the West stands for as were Fascism and Stalinism previously, our response will always be muddled and insufficient." Iraq, when the United States draws down its forces there, will likely became a vast bloodbath as Muslims play out their worst instincts and act upon the most fundamental aspects of their so-called religion. Perhaps the most interesting and most irritating aspect of the Iraq question is that both options-staying or leaving-can be argued with logic and facts. We cannot undo history. That is the fact with which we are faced right now. There are legitimate complaints regarding the astonishing failures of judgment about the invasion of Iraq, its subsequent occupation, and the continuing effort to destroy al Qaeda's role and diminish Iran's in the Middle East. The iron law of history, however, is that if tyranny is not opposed, it expands into the vacuum of indifference that fosters it. There is still time to hope that historians will look back and see that America did the right thing.
Alan Caruba is an American public relations counselor and freelance writer who is a frequent critic of environmentalism, Islam and research on global warming. In the late 1970s Caruba founded the PR firm The Caruba Organization, and in 1990, the National Anxiety Center, which identifies itself as "a clearinghouse for information about 'scare campaigns' designed to influence public policy and opinion" on such subjects as global warming, ozone depletion and DDT. |


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One question has fascinated me for a while now: How much have modern closers changed the game? I mean, sure, we know they have changed many things SURROUNDING the game in obvious ways. Closers have helped change the salary structure of the game. They have changed the way managers direct a game. They have given us indelible memories -- the stomping of Al Hrabosky, the high heat of Goose Gossage, the mustache of Rollie Fingers, the Dan Quisenberry sinker ball, the unhittable pitches of Craig Kimbrel, the wonder of Mariano.
My question is just a little bit different and more focused on results: How much more often do baseball teams win games they lead going into the ninth inning now that closers rule the ninth inning?
I've written some about this before, so first I'll review a bit and then get to some relatively new stuff. We start with a surprisingly simple fact:
When teams lead the game going into the ninth inning, they win 95% of the time.
No, the number is not all that surprising -- I suspect all of us would probably have guessed that teams leading going into the ninth win somewhere around 95%. What's surprising is how constant that statistic has been through the years -- teams winning 95% of the time they lead going into the ninth is pretty close to a universal truth. It was true in the 1950s. It was true in the 1960s. It was true in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s and 2000s.
Last year, 2,206 teams led going into the ninth inning, and 2095 of them won -- that's 95%.
Of course, it's never EXACTLY 95% -- last year, for instance, it was 94.968% -- so there are small fluctuations which we will talk about in a minute. But do those fluctuations mean anything? If you fairly flip a coin 2,000 times, it almost certainly will not land on heads exactly 1,000 times and tails exactly 1,000 times. We still know that it's a 50% chance of heads or tails. And it's a 95% chance for teams to hold on to their ninth inning leads -- the consistency of this number is staggering.
An example: In 1945, baseball was a different game. Almost all the baseball stars of the time were fighting World War II. The game was affected. Nobody in baseball hit 30 home runs that year. Guys like Stuffy Stirnweiss and Nels Porter and Steve Gromek were stars. It was disorienting.
In 1945, teams that led going into the ninth inning won 95% of the time.
The star players came back in 1946. Ted Williams led the league in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, total bases. Stan Musial hit .365. Hank Greenberg was back and he led baseball with 44 homers. Bob Feller pitched 371 innings (THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY ONE! It looks even more amazing in word form) with 36 complete games (THIRTY-SIX!) and he struck out 348 batters. Baseball was back.
In 1946, teams that led going into the ninth inning won 95% of the time.
The sheer stubbornness of this statistic is pretty remarkable. Baseball teams, through the years, have tried many different strategies to hold on to their ninth inning leads -- some interesting, some provocative, some seemingly stupid. And while, in the short term, they might cause a few ripples, the long term percentage never changes. It stays at 95%.
So, you might ask: If the percentage is so constant (and so high), why do teams try all these new strategies? Why do they spend so much money on closers? It's a provocative question. I do think that the idea of winning every single game you lead going into the ninth is SO tantalizing -- it seems SO achievable -- that teams just can't help themselves. And it's something easily documented. In 2011, the Baltimore Orioles lost four games they were leading going into the ninth. In 2012, they lost only one. It's easy to say this made a huge difference between 93-loss 2011 Orioles and the 93-win 2012 Orioles.*
*I suspect the bigger difference was that 2011 Orioles led going into the ninth inning 63 times, the 2012 Orioles led going into the ninth inning 76 times. Well, that and the Orioles freakish 16-2 record in extra innings.
There's something else. I think, that drives teams' constant effort to cut into that one time in 20 that they blow a lead in the ninth inning: Emotion. When teams DO blow a game in the ninth, it hurts like a monster. Everybody takes these kinds of losses much harder than the garden variety 6-2 loss. I think teams overcompensate because of that.
So, how much can new strategies affect the game? Well, if you look at the big picture, you have to go to the next decimal to find the differences:
1950s: .948
1960s: .946
1970s: .948
1980s: .951
1990s: .949
2000s: .954
2010s: .952
You can see that the last dozen or so years, the win percentages HAVE gone up slightly … the closer might deserve some of the credit. We'll get into that in a second. But, how much of a difference are we talking about? In the 2000s, teams held on to 95.4% of their leads against, say, 94.8% in the 1970s. That's roughly 135 extra wins in the 2000s. That's 13.5 per season. That's fewer than half a win per team. It's not nothing. But you might argue that it's not worth the many, many, many millions teams spent to get it.
This is how far I got last time … looking at this thing through a wide-angle lens. But, as many of you pointed out, looking at "ninth inning leads" as one entity is a very incomplete way of looking at things. Obviously a five-run lead going into the ninth is very different from a one-run lead going into the ninth. Before, I had no idea how to break down the leads by runs -- Baseball Reference doesn't yet give that option (though Sean Forman says it's something they might try to do in the future) and I just don't have the dexterity to manipulate the amazing Retrosheet database that way.
Well, Tom Tango and Baseball Prospectus to the rescue. Tom pointed out that by using the Baseball Prospectus expected win matrix, you can go back to the 1960s to find what a team's win percentage would be when leading with 0 outs and 0 base runners in the ninth inning. Great, great information. Now, finally, I would see just how much closers have affected the game. Right?
Well, first thing I found is something obvious: Teams up five runs or more going into the ninth inning win just about 100% of the time. There's a fluke comeback every now and again, but it's pretty close to 100%. Teams up four runs going into the ninth win 99% of the time. So we'll throw those out for now.
How about three runs? Well, Goose Gossage said one time that if he got a save for pitching one inning with his team up three runs, he would be "embarrassed." He's not wrong there. Teams up three going into the ninth almost always win.
Winning percentages when team leads by three runs going into the ninth inning:
1960s: .974
1970s: .977
1980s: .975
1990s: .963
2000s: .976
You will note that the lowest win percentage is in the 1990s. This is a big theme. Yes, teams obviously were using closers in the 1990s, but teams were also scoring runs at a historic rate.
Winning percentages when team leads by two runs going into the ninth inning:
1960s: .930
1970s: .925
1980s: .941
1990s: .936
2000s: .931
The numbers are kind of all over the place -- but as you can see the winning percentage in the 2000s, with closers and setup-men and all that, almost precisely matches the winning percentage of the 1960s, when runs were hard to come by and starters often finished what they started. I'm not sure what you can learn from this. Now, to the big one.
WInning percentages when team leads by one run going into the ninth inning:
1960s: .844
1970s: .850
1980s: .852
1990s: .846
2000s: .848
And … yeah, the stat kind of pops like wet firecrackers. Not a lot to see here. Apparently, the win percentage when teams are up one entering the ninth leading doesn't change much no matter what managers do. It was .850 in the 1970s. It was .848 in the 2000s.
Sure, yes, there are many variables here, and if you wanted to do an in-depth study of comebacks you would, as Tom Tango points out, take into consideration the run scoring environment. You would also consider ballparks and many other things. But I wasn't really interested in that. I was really interested in knowing if closers have made it more likely that teams will win games they lead going into the ninth. And the answer, I believe, is no.
Now, wait a minute: You could argue that the game is constantly evolving and that teams need to use closers JUST TO MAINTAIN the status quo. That is to say, if teams tried to stretch their starters like they did in the 1970s or use their bullpen the way managers did in the 1960s, teams might come back in the ninth inning a much higher percentage of the time. Maybe the comeback rate would be 10% instead of 5%. I don't know. It's a great topic of conversation and somewhat beyond my own meager analytical skills.
But I just find it fascinating that no matter how much everyone tries to fiddle with the last inning of a game -- closers, match-ups, specialists, pinch-hitters, whatever else -- those overall ninth-inning win percentages just do not move. I would guess that teams with great closers having great years might help a team squeeze an extra win or two in a season. Maybe. But I do wonder if all of the ninth inning tactics are about as useful as rearranging furniture.


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Noxious Weed Control
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Department Mission:
Klamath County Weed Control is dedicated to protecting public and private lands, agriculture, forestry, human health and wildlife from the negative impacts of Noxious Weeds.
Mandated Services:
ORS 569.355 State and counties to control noxious weeds. The state and the respective counties shall control any weeds designated as noxious by the state or the respective counties in any such county on land under their respective ownership's. Weed Control performs the County's required duties under ORS 569.355.
Self Mandated Services:
Chapter 569 of the Oregon Revised Statutes outlines the actions a County may take to control or otherwise prevent Noxious Weeds.
The County Commissioners have declared all lands within Klamath County a Weed Control District and have declared a list of Noxious Weeds within the County (Order 24-041). They have also appointed a County Weed Supervisor to conduct the duties outlined in ORS 569.370 & County Code 401.510.
Klamath County Weed Control, through the duties of the Weed Control & Vegetation Supervisor and his employees, provides the following services to Klamath County:
1) Find noxious weeds growing on land within the County
2) Serves notices to control noxious weeds
3) Issues citations for violations of County Code
4) Controls or otherwise destroys noxious weeds on land within the Weed Control District.
Successes and Challenges:
Weed Control remains entirely independent of the County General Fund. Weed Control has worked hard to provide quality service to our customers and has substantially reduced noxious weed infestations. In the past six years we have discovered and worked to control seven new weeds that were not previously known to exist in the County, and one of these was not previously known to exist in the State. Still, we are faced with an ever present threat of new invaders that have the potential to cause severe negative economic and biological impacts on our County. Keeping our applicators employed is another challenge we face. We only offer seasonal work and few people are initially attracted to or then able to remain in a seasonal employment situation.
Todd Pfeiffer
Weed Control SupervisorPhone: 541-883-4696


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Amp buying guide: best small gig amps
The best small gig amps
It's a sad fact that most of us will never get to walk on stage at Wembley Stadium to the sound of thousands of people chanting our name. Not while we're awake, anyway.
However, pretty much every guitarist will at least make it as far as playing a few pubs with his mates. Some will even get to tour the glorious smaller venues that crisscross the nation, kicking out the jams on stages that have formed a vital staging post for every invasion into the annals of rock legend.
But before any of that, you'll need an amp that can do the business. The difference between a piece of equipment that sounds beautiful and looks pretty in the confines of your bedroom, and one that will withstand all the knocks, drops and spillages that accompany even the smallest of pub gigs is enormous.
But fear not, young warrior of the road. We've scoured our extensive reviews archive and picked the amps best suited for smaller venues, the amps that will sound good and keep working no matter how many times it's thrown into the back of the van.
Fender Excelsior
Loads of fun, not much money and it looks great to boot. The Excelsior is the go-to amp for credible old-school Americana valve sounds on a budget. And it's got built-in tremolo!
TYPE: Valve combo
OUTPUT: 13 watts
SPEAKERS: 1x15" Fender Special Design
WEIGHT: 15kg/33lbs
Egnater Rebel 30
If your bag includes rock, blues and fusion, then this amp probably has your name on it. One of the best small combos in its class – add the 1x12 extension cab and you've got a killer rig that's portable and versatile.
TYPE: Valve combo
OUTPUT: 30 watts
SPEAKERS: 1x12" Celestion Elite 80
WEIGHT: 31.75 kg/70lbs
Orange Thunder 30C combo
Despite the stage-filling projection of its ported cabinet, the TH30 combo is compact and easily portable. Throw the variable power switching in and you're looking at a dangerously tempting, versatile package.
TYPE: Valve combo
OUTPUT: 30/15/7 watts
SPEAKERS: 1x12" Celestion G12H30
WEIGHT: 24kg/52.9lbs
Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 36
It has MIDI switching and a multi-step power attenuator that can be remotely controlled. It also sounds great for any number of styles and is compact and light, too. Plenty loud enough for small and medium gigs.
TYPE: 3-channel valve head
OUTPUT: 36/18/5/1 watts
WEIGHT: 7.6kg/16.7lbs
Mesa/Boogie Express 5:25
Supremely versatile amp that covers clean, crunch and Mesa's renowned high-gain sounds. It's 5:50 bigger brother is fabulous, too. They've just been upgraded to Express Plus status (not yet reviewed).
TYPE: Valve combo
OUTPUT: 25 watts
SPEAKERS: 1x10" (some have a 12") Mesa/Celestion Black Shadow
WEIGHT: 16kg/34lbs